Memory Fragments: Probity

In This Town, Time Is Made By Hand

Remember Clockwork? What a town it was. Remembered only by the rust of contemporizing. Time tried to keep up with its rustic feel and way of living, but it was way too slow to not fall into slumber. Moving ever forward, at its own pace, Clockwork retains that air of familiarity for so long that it becomes the only thing you know about it. A home everlasting, where time is made by hand.

As time goes on, you will remember how it was to live and breathe the same air you have been inhaling all your life. When trying to take a breath of fresh air, you could only take in the same old winds of change. Is that not so, Faust? Every tic and toc recall a broken time of day. But even then, it is the perfect time of day twice a day. So why change how time works in Clockwork? It is broken, yet it does not need fixing as everyone handles it in their own special way. Custom made and by hand, it truly does feel like a specially crafted period of existence, does it not?

Is this town even real, Faust? Lost to time, whoever could have found it? Ah, but you could have. Of course you could have. A craft such at that one could only have been made by a master time keeper. Architect of stagnation, where time slows down to a halt, all so you could prove and master the only thing you were ever good at: Automated invention of solutions.

This town was only a means to an end to you, was it not? A place where you could explore and refine as much as you wanted. No matter the slowdown, something could always come eventually from that old mind of yours. Doing so would elevate you as the town's one and only inventor. The only one capable of solving its time crisis to continuously meet the deadlines and quotas of Cyfoes! ...Is that one not a name you have not heard in a while, now, have you? We will get to it later, but for now, let us focus on Clockwork's inner workings.

Ever since time out of mind, Clockwork has existed as this place where innovation transpires every day, and yet, it is the same kind every single time. The exact same way, at the exact same time. It works like clockwork, does it not? Hence the name of the town. A new locale opens up exactly the same as the one before, the news seem to be the same ones as the day before, even what people do is the same every day. The same old, same old repetition time and time again!

But it is not a loop, as that would be bad for the town's model, now, would it? Something is always just slightly changed, innovated upon, to make it look new. This model was created for that same purpose. To automate this town into a subservient autonomy by proxy. Sounds kind of contradictory, does it not? It can never truly become fully autonomous. It can never, ever be independent without some sort of minimal input from an external source.

Such is the case when an artificial intelligence is tasked with creating endless iteration without having new inputs. Without having fresh, new, and innovative ways of making something that already exists appear to be created, the poor machine can only do what it already knows. A familiar town whose details change ever so slightly to reflect a change that never happened. It just changed iteration. Like a version with phantom updates.

"Redold" it was called. The town where time was made by hand. It perfected this craft for so long, that now it works like clockwork. Losing along the way that rustic feeling of individual input into its life.